page_title: Bromyard
section_title: Rowden
hierarchical_section_title: Bromyard / Architecture / Rowden
caption_attribution_description: English: Rowden A hamlet of three farms on Rowden Lane, a hill climbing away from Hampsthwaite and the Nidd valley.
context_page_description: Bromyard is a market town in the Bromyard and Winslow civil parish of the county of Herefordshire, England. It is situated in the valley of the River Frome. The 2011 census gives a population of approximately 4,500. It lies near to the county border with Worcestershire on the A44 between Leominster and Worcester. Bromyard has a number of traditional half-timbered buildings, including some of the pubs, and the parish church dates back to Norman times. For centuries there was a thriving livestock market. The town is twinned with Athis-de-l'Orne, Normandy.
context_section_description: The 465 acres of land area in Rowden (meaning a rough hill) was occupied by Sir John la Moigne in 1300 when he built the first chapel there.  The house was named after the ancient Rowdon family of Burley Gate, who occupied it during the English Civil Wars. Edward Rowden built a new house in 1651 on the ruins of the medieval buildings; its dovecote was a local landmark of "circular stone".  It was unoccupied by 1721.
  Rowden House was formerly known as Rowden Barn in the 1830s.  It was a large stone building erected by judicious marriage into the family of Warren Hastings, the Governor-General of India. Rowden House was rebuilt in 1883, for a son of Lord St John cut out of stone after the Queen Anne-style, with a hipped roof and noteworthy pedimented dormer window. The brick chimneys, medallion cornices, and keystoned arches are from an earlier era.  Like other Grade 1 listed buildings in the district it is busied by ornate carving, lozenges, and carved roof-beams.  The estate was owned by the industrialist John Arkwright who was responsible for the addition of unusually decorated farm cottages built in 1867.  Rev W N Berkeley the local rector resided there in 1891, but it was sold to Rear-Adm J Alleyne Baker in 1909.  The owners sported a fine ballroom popular with local people.
  The original medieval moated abbey beside the River Frome was demolished in about 1790.  The present Rowden Abbey was rebuilt in 1881 as a half-timbered mansion for landowner Henry J Bailey. Similar to the above houses in style and decoration, it also exhibited fine gabled porch entrances.  The interior had panelling and ribbed ceilings, with delightful bay windows in the reception rooms.
  Rowden Mill was a late Elizabethan/early Jacobean converted stone and timber house along the banks of the River Frome.  The mill was a three-storey working building with a timber-framed dwelling house attached.  On one side of it stood the mill and on the other a bakery and house, which continued as a Master Bakery until 1945.  It was for centuries a working corn mill grinding the grain on the Rowden estates.  But by the 20th century it faced economic decline; yet E Powell Tuck still made it a commercial operation during World War Two.
  The Tack was probably a successful medieval sheep farm since the name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon tacca.  A farmhouse stood on the Tenbury Road; built of stone in 1838 it contained a large hop kiln and granary in a complex of buildings, now part of the dwelling.  Among its quirky features included two bays in a stable block once used as servants quarters that were built circa 1800.
caption: Rowden - geograph.org.uk - 1265099 approaching the manor
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